Clause 17.—(THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONS.) (Hansard, 7 May 1958)

§ Mr. Bevins

I beg to move, in page 15, line 27, at the beginning to insert: If the Commission make a representation in that behalf". This Amendment is linked with the one that follows it in page 15, line 30. They both relate to Clause 17 (2); that is to say, to the Clause which enables the Minister to define new special review areas, in England only, by Order. This power is required in case the Commission comes to the conclusion, after looking at an area, that that area cannot be made the subject of satisfactory proposals unless the district pattern and functions as well as the county and county borough pattern can be looked at and dealt with as a 1330 whole, and is able to satisfy the Minister that this is so. Hon. Members may remember that in Standing Committee some anxieties were expressed—in the first place, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley)—that the Minister should have these powers at all, and I hope that the present Amendments will allay those anxieties.

Perhaps I might be allowed to say that by virtue of these provisions, the Minister will be able to define a new special review area by Order only where the Commission has recommended that this should be done—only on the recommendation of the Local Government Commission, and not on the initiative of the Minister. The Minister, however, will be free to take different boundaries from those recommended by the Commission, so as to exclude, for example, a district which, in his view, seems better suited to ordinary review treatment. That is not a substantial departure from the principle that I have just mentioned. The Amendment also provides that the Minister will be able to define only one new area in one Order. That, I think, will meet the sense of the feeling expressed in Standing Committee.